Flash Fiction

Mix-and-Match Writing Prompts

Instant Inspiration

I developed the Flash Fiction guidebook for one of my writers’ groups. It’s a quick and easy way to generate story ideas — with or without tarot and astrology.

The Flash Fiction Book

Don’t waste time waiting for story ideas to come to you. Flip through this guide, and you can create characters and plots in seconds.

Simply choose a single word or phrase from each of the five sections, in order, and then turn those selections into a sentence. It’s easy, because the sections are arranged like parts of speech.

Here’s a sample prompt to show you how it works.

1. descriptions (adjectives): vengeful
2. characters (nouns): historian
3. actions (verbs): steals
4. plot twists (objects): movie script
5. settings (more nouns): coffee shop

Add a few articles and prepositions, and you have a premise for a story: A vengeful historian steals a movie script in a coffee shop.